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Military. >> don't fordebt -- >> it costs real money. >> leon panetta was chief of staff in the white house. he's the example of somebody who could get in the ball game to protect his own bureaucracy but also to create a deal for the whole country. >> let's also remember how one of the ways we got this huge sea of red ink, unfunded wars during the bush administration. you don't go to war and cut taxes at the same time. george w. bush was the first president in history to do that. >> okay let's talk about that because that's a good starting point. we were talking earlier tonight and it's an exc...

>> if we were starting from scratch. that might make a lot of sense because it's a very efficient tax. it doesn't discourage savings and investment have investment. but to add a value added tax which is hidden sales tax to all the other taxes we have. that would basically make us another european country. i grew up partly in europe. i can remember in the 1970s, vat rates were 10%. now in many counties they are 16 to 20%. it constantly has a ratchet effect, it always goes up. >> gregg: it starts low and everybody says, okay, that is not so bad, but year after year, it rises. and the trouble is ...

Way. when the president's party controls the senate, as it does now by a wide margin, 59-41, no nominee has lost since the 1960s. so i think it's unlikely that any obama nominee would lose. >> but some nominees haven't even made it to the actual nominating process. i mean -- >> harriet miers didn't make it that far. but not because of opposition from democrats but because of opposition from her own party. >> reihan, we're hearing rumbles about the possibility of -- even though there is not somebody who has been suggested as the nominee, but rumblings of the possibility of a filibuster. >> you ...

There's a leaggal strategy as well. you cannot force people to buy things. until you see the attorney's general beginning to mount that challenge. >> one of the great arguments i expect to have to have is even a libertarian does expect the ambulance to arrive if they suffer an accident on the highway or struck by a heart attack or stroke or something. they expect society to come to their aid. can you be forced to do what you will rely upon. >> you know, i think this yes gets worked out, there's another matter, too. the ratchet effect. there are going to be things consumers feel right away from...